Statement of Teaching Philosophy, Experience, and ApproachBy Theodora Johnson*Note: I wrote this paper in 1989 when I initially thought about enrolling in school at UALR. At the time I was teaching Comp I at a junior college that was a cross between an Adult Education and Welfare-to-Work Program. Most of my students were either displaced auto workers or women wanting to get skills to get in the workplace.After four years of teaching in an institution whose mission was to educate the uneducable, I developed a whole new philosophy and approach to teaching English Composition. They are respectively that anyone can write once introduced to a structured method and guidance; and that this method can be taught through the use of unorthodox methods to reach a non-traditional student.I had taught traditional grammar and literature on the secondary level using the traditional method, and thought, at the time, that there was only one way to teachby the book, period, and that was the way I did it. However, once I began teaching at Jordan College, I had to look at the education process in a different light. Here I was trying to teach non-traditional students in a traditional way and failing to reach them. These non-traditional students could not identify a complete sentence, nor could many of them identify a subject or a verb in a sentence; so, when I walked in talking about thesis statements, comma splices, fragments, parallelism, and faulty coordination they turned off.Nevertheless, I did find a way to turn them right back on. I decided to incorporate basic structure and theory with an unorthodox approach. It worked. By breaking the terminology down to their levels and reaching them by using concepts they could grasp, I started getting the results I desired. The students could now understand what I wanted, which was well-structured themes based on sound thesis statements, and thats what I got. I also took a stance on making the course fun. If English is presented as something fun rather than drudgery or as just a necessary credit, then the students will view the class with a more positive attitude. A more positive attitude toward the course produced more positive results in the students writing. I believe that by allowing students to start writing in a non-threatening environment will free them to write more productively. For instance, by allowing students to write persuasive essays based on classroom discussions of current events, or write a comparison-contrast essay on two movie characters viewed in an in-class movie, or write a description essay based on a favorite place allowed them the avenue of expression writing. Sometimes I would even let them interview one another and write stories about one another to present to the class. All of these papers would evolve into formal themes and essays, but to take the edginess out of the writing assignment, I would allow them to write freely on the front end. Then we would edit and tighten the writing according to the rules of proper Composition I writing These types of writing assignments gave them a new look at writing as something pleasant rather than required drudgery.I believe that these approaches, combined with my philosophy for teaching writing at the time, is responsible for the successes I had with my freshmen writers. Many went on to four-year schools and graduated; others went to work in white-collar jobs; some dropped out because of government red tape interfering with their financial aid. Regardless of their outcomes while I was there, the majority of them expressed their thanks for helping them progress in their writing.